


The Enigma Machine

by 3littleowls



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, BAMF!Mycroft, Case Fic, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hacking, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mycroft's Meddling, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-02-23
Packaged: 2017-11-26 10:25:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3littleowls/pseuds/3littleowls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft turns 221B into a safehouse for one of his pet projects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Safehouse

**Author's Note:**

> Beta and Britpicked by the lovely gowerstreet. This is my very first fic, be kind!

##### "Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two facilities, which we may call intuition and ingenuity." -Alan Turing

***

_I’m dropping something off at your flat. -MH_

Sherlock drops the phone back into his pocket. He leans his forehead against the rain spattered window of the cab. London's morning weekday rush hasn’t quite begun, and likely John is just waking up.

What Mycroft is up to is not currently his concern.

He steeples his fingers and considers his investigation. The minister he had rousted out of bed had no useful information on the missing bridegroom, but that was hardly a surprise. He was quite sure his client, a well-off young lady, would never see her fiancé again. It was hardly a challenging case, but it had at least kept him occupied for a few hours.

His phone rings. John. Sherlock doesn’t see the point of answering. A series of texts follow suit:  
 __

_Where are you?_

_Mycroft is here._

_They are unloading a van of electronics._

_Answer me you git!_

***

When he arrives at 221B, several men are running cables up the stairs from the unoccupied basement apartment up to his flat. Ethernet cables and power cords.

“Good morning Sherlock!” says Mrs. Hudson, “When your brother told me your guest had a few things to store in the basement, I didn’t expect this. He’s paying the month but…”

Sherlock narrows his eyes at her prattle and heads up the stairs. The door is open and John is dressed and making tea. “Your brother was here and left twenty minutes ago, Sherlock why didn’t you answer your phone? Hell, I don’t know why I even bother to try to…”

Sherlock’s attention is fixed on the figure bundled on his sofa. Female, very short brown hair. Curled into a ball with her face buried into the back of the sofa.

“She has been out cold since he dropped her off. Mycroft said she needed a place to stay for a few days, something about national importance. Someone is out looking for her and it was...”

Sherlock's face twists into a sneer. “You let my brother turn our flat into a safehouse for Queen and Country!”

“You wouldn't answer your phone! Besides, he said it could be dangerous.”

Sherlock looks unconvinced but his face returns to neutral. “What is her name? What do you know about her?” A hand waves in the direction of the sofa.

John strains the tea into two cups. “Jess Trueswell. An American I think. She came in and barely made it into the sofa. Jet lag, I'd say. She has a flat full of computer equipment downstairs. ”

Sherlock huffs and pulls out his mobile.

__  
_Mycroft, I think you forgot something of yours. -SH_

_I do believe you agreed to a do job to repay me for that nonsense at Baskerville._

_Who is she Mycroft? -SH_

_Deduce it.  
_


	2. Bletchley Park 221b

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She isn’t quite like Sherlock. Because really no one is like Sherlock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It may be over a week before the next chapter. I'm studying for a certification exam at work.

Two days later, Mycroft Holmes is back at 221b. He sits in John's preferred chair drinking tea. John is standing in the kitchen, watching the inevitable Holmes vs. Holmes show. Mycroft was simply there to check on the progress of his codebreaker, not to get a lecture on how flawed his plan to hide Jess at 221b was. Sherlock is prowling around like a tiger timing his verbal attacks, a mobile in his fist. Jess taps at her keyboard, seeming to be in another world.

So far the cryptographer hasn't been a burden to John. Once Jess rose from the sofa and introduced herself properly, she pulled out a laptop and has been clicking away for the last forty-eight hours. Her focus has an eerie resemblance to his other flatmate when on a case.

She isn’t quite like Sherlock. Because really no one is like Sherlock. She can interact with other human beings for one thing, No one would call her a sociopath. She was just choosing not to participate with the rest of the world at the time. John couldn't really blame her.

“Mycroft, you can't seriously think you are fooling anyone after your van and electricians installed a server farm to 221c, do you?” Sherlock snarls. He paces the room, poking at the mobile.

Mycroft rolls his eyes so hard John thinks he can hear them rattle in his orbits. “Hidden in plain sight, Sherlock.”

Sherlock flops dramatically down in his chair and growls at his mobile. Jess' eyes flick from the computer to Sherlock, then back to her machine. She has rather big brown eyes, John thinks, not for the first time. Rather waif-like, with close cropped dark pixie hair. He guesses she has a slight figure hiding under her voluminous hooded sweatshirt and cargo pants. She probably would have been considered cute once, but she now has a few small crinkles around her eyes. It has given her a bit more of a hawkish maturity. He guesses she is about his age.

“Two, maybe three more days.” Jess tells Mycroft suddenly,“Then I can leave for Switzerland.” She manages to holds his gaze, something few people can do.

“Oh delightful. Bletchley Park 221b throughout the weekend.” Sherlock snaps. Jess gives him a withering look and goes back to typing. “Please tell me when the snipers come for her Mycroft.”

When she first arrived John had held out hope that perhaps Sherlock and Jess would hit it off. After his initial temper tantrum at Mycroft's intrusion on his household, he and Jess had conversed at great lengths about her project as she was getting set up to start work. She showed Sherlock the server cluster downstairs and they gabbled on about satellite phones and A5-GMR-2 encryption, whatever the hell that was.

It all seemed to be fine until Sherlock got some unknown bee in his bonnet. Jess, unlike Sherlock, seemed to require food to fuel her brain cells. She also had a generous takeaway stipend. So John and Jess had eaten a rather large amount of Indian food while Sherlock poked at some case files for Lestrade.

He and Jess had been cleaning up and teasingly debating the merits of American football and rugby when Sherlock started to glare at them. Jess brought the dishes to the sink and offered to help dry. John was sharing some humorous stories from his rugby days and Sherlock exploded.

“This in unbearable! How can a person think with all this senseless yammering!” Sherlock had sounded like a peeved teenager, “This is as bad as one of your dates, John. This is my life you are intruding on! My Work!” His hands fluttered in the air dramatically, like demented butterflies. “Mycroft is scheming, and don’t think I don’t know!” He exclaimed before stomping out of the flat, in a swirl of dark coat.

They have been getting along like wet cats in a sack ever since. At least they seemed to have finally marked territory in the flat and decided to ignore each other; Jess having some A5-GMR-2 thingy to decrypt, Sherlock researching an attempted homicide. John just crept around the edges of the flat, wondering why Sherlock was irritated at him. It certainly gave him one more reason to stay out of the line of fire with Mycroft here.

“Coming to check on your little pet personally in your big black Audi certainly won't draw any attention.” Sherlock cuts at Mycroft while jabbing at the mobile's keypad again.

“I come see you periodically, brother. It's not an abnormal behavior pattern.”

Sherlock throws the phone on the floor with a huff.

“Will you give me the damn thing?” Jess cries at Sherlock, finally exasperated. “Seriously, trying to deduce the passcode. It’s ridiculous! We have tools for that!”

Sherlock fixes her with his cold stare. “I don't need your help.”

She stares right back at him, uncowed. “Locked out again, are we? Too many guesses in a row?”

“I do not guess.”

Mycroft sips his tea. “Really Sherlock. You have one of the best cryptographers in the world sitting on your sofa. When have you not taken advantage at resources at your disposal? You certainly take liberties at Bart's.”

Jess extends her hand palm up to Sherlock without her eyes leaving the scroll of mathematical formulas on her computer screen. Sherlock growls at Mycroft then picks up the phone and hands it to her. After digging around her laptop bag for a cable, she hooks it up to her laptop and in a few minutes, hands the unlocked mobile to Sherlock.

Without a word, Sherlock steps on his chair seat, strides over the back and out of the room, slamming his bedroom door so hard the walls shake.

“I assure you there are no snipers. Just petulant brothers,” Mycroft says with a sigh.

John is not sure if he feels reassured.


	3. The Beast In Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock goes away. The lead weight that has made a nest in his sternum throbs. He doesn't understand the pain. It began while he was away, like a parasitic infection. Maybe that is exactly what it was. Something he picked up in Africa. He just doesn't know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay. The 4th chapter will be right up in a couple days!

If John has to tolerate one more day of drama in his flat, he is going to ask Mycroft if he can just go on the hunt for whoever was after Jess. Possibly getting killed might be a better alternative to Sherlock’s moping and the never ending drone of Jess’ clacking keyboard. The days have spread into a week and she is still there, working on her mysterious project.

After the blowup with Sherlock, Jess was spending more time in 221c. With the mold and less natural light it seemed inhumane to John to leave her down there. In fact it seemed like solitary confinement. John would visit periodically out of sympathy, but even that seemed to inflame Sherlock’s anger. Eventually John persuaded her to at least come up for meals, since nothing was going to make his aggravating roommate happy with the situation in any case. Now, she was lingering in their flat after dinner with her laptop a bit more.

It seemed circumstance trapped Sherlock in 221b as neatly as Jess had been locked in by Mycroft. Sherlock hadn’t heard anything from Lestrade in several days, and the case request emails dried up. John guessed Sherlock was so temperamental and stir crazy because he was trying to find a target for his boredom. Being a complete prat between cases wasn’t unusual; however John had noted some changes in Sherlock’s behavior that worried him.

When Sherlock returned from the dead several months prior, he had seemed unchanged from the experience. Sure he looked a bit worn down, just like a man who had been chasing lunatics around the globe. Otherwise he was exactly the same deducting machine as when he had left.

He hadn’t even seemed particularly ruffled when he appeared like a ghost on the doorstep that first night. John had punched him in the face, raved at him for hours, cried and then refused to see him for several days. John had come around, of course. It was still frustrating that Sherlock had blandly accepted his distress. John’s shock, grief and eventual forgiveness was like a calculated event Sherlock had worked in as a part of his great plan. That his friend had been crushed and lost without him was just another variable that he could accept. This bothered John deeply that Sherlock had displayed such little empathy for someone who cared so much for him.

As of late, small things about Sherlock’s behavior had been making John reconsider that he was not untouched by his madman hunting spree. He was spending more time in his room with the door shut instead of lurking around the flat. John would catch him watching him, and then he’d quickly look away as if he had been caught doing something wrong. He would sometimes leave his mobile at home and disappear on the streets of London, much to John's distress. Finally, while Sherlock had always been prone to temper tantrums, they were even more melodramatic lately, something John would have previously thought impossible.

“Ow. Damn it!”

John shakes himself out of his reverie. The keyboard had stopped clacking. John looks at Jess. She is holding her wrist in obvious pain.

“Overdoing it? Maybe you need to take a break.” John says with a note of concern. “Why don’t you let me take a look?”

Sherlock sighs loudly and shakes the paper he is reading. John ignores him and gets up to examine Jess’ wrist.

“Look, whatever it is just drug me up so I can get a move on.” Jess complains as John palpates her hand.

“That doesn’t really work that well. Can you pinch my arm? Is that as hard as you can do it?”

“Lives are at stake John. Really I’m almost finished and then I can rest the damn thing. Just get my hand working.”

John shakes his head. “Let me get you some ice for now. Really, you need to rest it.”

Jess slaps the table in frustration with her other hand.

“I think you better call my brother and tell him his toy is broken.” Sherlock interjects, sounding smug.

“Oh you can just fuck right off!” Jess exclaims, finally fed up.

Sherlock doesn’t hide his satisfied smirk as he gets himself together and heads for the door. “Give Mycroft my regards!” He says cheerily.

John considers his next question to Jess carefully. “Do you think we should call Mycroft?”

Jess chews her lip. She looks defeated.

***

Sherlock goes away. The lead weight that has made a nest in his sternum throbs. He doesn't understand the pain. It began while he was away, like a parasitic infection. Maybe that is exactly what it was. Something he picked up in Africa. He just doesn't know. His research is inconclusive. It hurts more when she is around. The lead thing twists and aches when John looks at her, pays attention to her. It pushes and writhes until he feels ill and has to go to his room and let it settle.

He walks through Queen Mary's gardens. He walks north until his feet ache. He wonders not for the first time if cocaine would oust the lead beast in his chest. A chance encounter with a heroin addict of his homeless network changes his mind. For now.

It rains. Eventually walking does calm the beast and it returns to it's ever present nest. Sherlock hails a cab and goes back to Baker street. Perhaps Jess has gone back down to her own flat. Perhaps the beast will continue to sleep and only leave him with its weighty presence.

Sherlock has no such luck. Jess is still there, in his home. Even worse, Mycroft is still there. Mycroft, who always has to remind him of favors owed. Mycroft who helped him die, helped him live while he tore apart the last threat of Moriarty's web.

Sherlock freezes as he processes the scene. Mycroft is on his sofa. Jess is curled tightly against him, feet tucked under her. Mycroft has an arm around her shoulder. His other hand is gently, so gently, cradling her bandaged arm. His brother is sitting perfectly straight, his face has its normal measured expression. Even with that, the obvious intimacy of the embrace startles Sherlock to his core. Someone is touching Mycroft, and he is letting her. He even seems to be reciprocating. They really may as well be coupling in his flat.

The beast within rouses, snakes around his heart, pushes up his throat. He croaks “Mycroft.” Before stumbling into his room, shutting the door hard.

He doesn't make it to the bed. He slumps against the wall and slowly sinks to the floor.

The Work. Sentiment. It is Not an Advantage. The old phrases tumble like familiar mantras through his mind. They now seem false. He feels adrift and lost as his insides churn.


	4. Convolutional code

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Mycroft and Sherlock like to think they have no feelings, no heart, she knows this is not true. They have simply been scrambled by their upbringing and brilliant minds.

Jess floats a bit in a narcotic haze. John did not approve of the doctor Mycroft had brought. Cortisone and pain medication, then tomorrow it is back to work. John doesn't know how important it is that she decrypt the satellite phone transmissions so Mycroft can track his targets.

Mycroft. Ah, the brilliant and driven man. The dangerous man who had held her delicately, like an injured bird, just a while ago. Above all he understands how important the work is, above health, and even above love. Or no, perhaps because of it, she corrects. _Glorious._

Mycroft has gone back to work and John has stepped out just for a bit to get milk, leaving her here to drift and absorb the cortisone. Not alone, as she stares at Sherlock's closed door. Poor Sherlock.

She makes her way to his room and opens his door without knocking. The room is only lit by the afternoon sunlight through a small window, throwing everything in shadows. Sherlock is on the floor, back against the wall, his hands steepled. Even though she has entered his room uninvited, he is unmoving. His face is impassive.

Jess settles on the floor across from him and leans over and touches a nonthreatening spot, his bare ankle. I'm here. She waits. She has done this before with Mycroft. She knows how this will play out.

She does not have the power of deducing human nature like the Holmes brothers. Mycroft was the one to tell her what was eating Sherlock alive. What Jess can do is repair broken code. While Mycroft and Sherlock like to think they have no feelings, no heart, she knows this is not true. They have simply been scrambled by their upbringing and brilliant minds. She can check the headers, help them repair the corrupted bytes. She can reorder, replace and rebuild what is there.

It takes patience. Perhaps a lifetime of it. Mycroft is her project, but oh, how worth it he is. She remembers the first taste of his lips on hers, hesitant, so careful. Someone else will have to fix this brother. But she thinks she can at least point Sherlock in the right direction.

“How long?”

She has almost drifted off waiting for him to wander from his Mind Palace. She knows he would not be able to resist collecting new data. He may not like her, but she is there offering herself up for him to examine. She just has to be very careful, very patient.

“Just a few months. Six, seven depending on where you want to start count.”

“You met when he went to the States in the summer.” Sherlock puts together, “You must be CIA.”

Jess snorts. “Oh hell no. I told you before, I'm a contractor. As long as you are on the right side and have a sizable banking account.”

Sherlock lapses back into silence. Finally he says. “He cannot love you. He is the British Government. He will not allow distractions to his work.” Jess is not sure if he is trying to injure her by this, or intends it as an honest warning. Perhaps its both.

“I know his priorities. I had not seen him in weeks before this case. We meet when we can.” He gives me what he can.

Sherlock opens his eyes. He is processing, but she can tell the pieces are not falling into place yet. He then surprises her.

“I thought he preferred men.” He comments with honest confusion.

She barks out a laugh and stifles it. The narcotics have loosened her control, not exactly a good thing in this situation. “I think he does too, to be honest, but here we are.”

Sherlock's eye widen before he stares off in the middle distance. She knows these questions are not about her and Mycroft. She suspects he must know she realizes it as well, but the conversation is safe if it's directed at her.

Jess phrases what she says next as carefully as her drug impaired mind can manage. “There are really no standard rules in relationships, Sherlock. What your brother is able to give me is enough, because it is all that I want. If I had wanted a white picket fence, marriage and stability I could have had that years ago. I wanted my work, I need it.” She picks her way very slowly, “Your brother and I are unique people who wouldn't match the expectations of many others. The trick is to recognize the other person who you can live with, the person who can tolerate you, appreciate you. The rest is just...well, negotiation.”

Sherlock closes his eyes and lifts his hands to his lips as if in prayer. She waits for what seems to be an eon before she stands to go. She feels the interview is over, and anything more would raise hackles and cause Sherlock to close up even further. “Mycroft intended to tell you, but it’s not like you two have brotherly chats about your lives very often.”

Sherlock's mouth quirks at this as she opens the door to leave him with his thoughts.

Sherlock stays on the floor a bit. He is still in shock that his brother had found someone to love him, and even stranger that he has reciprocated in kind. It seemed insane, but the evidence was before him. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

The weight in his sternum lessens just a bit. Terrifyingly, it feels a bit like hope.


	5. Unresolved equations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess finishes her assignment, but is the project successful?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chocolate and roses to gowerstreet, the beta Queen!

“It’s done!” Jess exclaims, leaping off the sofa.

“Excellent. Leave now,” Sherlock says. John throws a newspaper at him.

Jess shakes her head and picks up her mobile to text Mycroft using her good hand.

_Sending what you need through the VPN._

Long minutes pass.

_We have them. It should be over shortly. Make sure everyone stays in Baker Street. –MH_

Jess glances at the two men.

“You have to eat something, Sherlock.” John fusses, pointing at the egg on toast he left on the windowsill.

Sherlock ignores him and continues to scratch discordant noises on his violin. He has dark circles under his eyes.

_Not a problem, My._

“You’re not even on a case,” John grouses looking from his newspaper, “You are starting to look like death warmed over. Have you been sleeping at all?”

Sherlock replies by dropping his violin on his chair. He starts pacing, switching his bow back and forth.  
John makes a long suffering sigh and goes back to reading his newspaper.

Sherlock stops pacing. He freezes and the rushes to peer out one of the windows.

“Um, Sherlock?” John asks, “Something wrong?” Even Jess can feel the sudden tension in the flat.

One of the steps up to the flat creaks.

“Oh hell.” Jess mutters. “Boys we might have…”

A shadow falls across the second floor entry. “Sherlock!” John yelps and dives toward him, pulling him down. Jess hits the floor at the same time. A sharp report of gunfire echoes through the flat. A second shot follows from the first floor hallway.

A man’s body collapses onto the floor. Mycroft appears in the doorway, huffing a bit and wielding a smoking gun. The sound of more feet pound up the stairs and MI5 agents pour through the entrance.

“Anyone hurt?” Mycroft asks.

Jess shakes her head.

“John.” Sherlock says, raising a hand covered in blood. John lies slumped next to Sherlock. He took the shot for him.

“Ambulance is already on his way.” Mycroft says, “Sherlock how bad…”

“Bad,” he replies, putting direct pressure on John’s chest. It takes all his considerable will to hold himself together until the ambulance technicians arrive.

***

“Answers!” Sherlock bellows with wild eyes, rounding on Mycroft as John is being taken downstairs and loaded into the ambulance. A couple of Mycroft’s men are examining the body of the gunman, and a few of the agents have left to deal with the cleanup with the police outside.

Mycroft runs his hands through his hair. “That was Jonathan Woodley. He was the ringleader of a human trafficking ring. We used the satellite phone decryption Jess provided to find him. We knew he was in London, but we couldn’t trace his exact movements. We didn’t know that he was so close to his target.”

“Her!” Sherlock roars, pointing towards Jess.

Mycroft suddenly looks very tired. “No Sherlock. Woodley was part of Moriarty’s network. He was never after Jess.”

Sherlock is poleaxed. “We…I missed one?”

Mycroft nods.

“You…why…why didn’t you tell me?” Sherlock’s face darkens.

“I thought it was for the best. It was not my intention for you to find out.”

Sherlock growls and launches himself at Mycroft. It takes both agents to restrain him.

***

Jess slides into the backseat of Mycroft’s parked Audi. Sherlock is on the other side curled against the window, handcuffed. He is looking at Jess as if she is a pit viper.

“They have taken John into surgery.” She says quietly. “I thought you’d want to know.”

Sherlock just glares at her silently for several minutes. Jess settles into the leather and waits for him.

“Why? Why didn’t Mycroft get me involved?” he asks through gritted teeth.

“He thought you had done enough, Sherlock. You had given up years of your life running ragged, chasing down the others. You have blood on your hands. You have just come back to London and thought it was over when Mycroft heard through his channels about Woodley. Woodley thought you were coming for his group next, so they decided to be proactive. Mycroft wanted to quietly head him off.”

“They were never after you. You were keeping tabs on me.”

Jess sighed. “I’m not your brother’s spy, Sherlock. I am exactly what I have told you I am. I was breaking into Woodley’s encrypted communications and I had to do it someplace. Baker Street was being closely monitored on the outside, which is why Mycroft got to us so quickly today. He just wanted someone inside the house too, since you ripped out his bugs. I’m surprised you never asked why I wasn’t hiding out at Mycroft’s house, especially after you discovered our…relationship.”

Sherlock thumps his head against the car window. Obvious.

“If he had told me none of this would have happened! He completely botched it up!” Sherlock shouts.

“He is not omniscient, Sherlock.”

“He is a complete fool. He is too busy manipulating people to consider the options. He didn't think!” Sherlock pulls at the handcuffs, rubbing his wrists raw. He twists, kicks the back of the front seat repeatedly. “Where IS he? Why has he sent you to do his dirty work?”

“Mycroft is cleaning up the mess and making sure they eliminated all of Woodley’s team. I’m here…” She grabs Sherlock’s elbow to stop his flailing. “...to try to get you in an appropriate state of mind to take you to the hospital.”

“I don’t WANT your help!” Sherlock shouts and writhes out of her grasp.

Jess shrugs. “It seems that you need it, though. I thought you would want to be there when John is in recovery. I really don’t think A&E is going to let a man raving in cuffs stop in for a visit, do you?”

“I’ll never forgive him for this!” Sherlock exclaims.

“Kind of rich coming from a man who pretended he was dead for three years to protect the people he loves.”

Sherlock snarls, but he stops abusing the back of the car. He eventually quiets and leans his head back against the window. The back of the car is silent for a bit.

A mobile pings. Jess reads the message and types one back.

“What?” Sherlock asks, reading the pinched expression on Jess’ face.

The front doors to the car open. A driver and Anthea get in. Jess takes Sherlock’s hands and unlocks the cuffs. The car starts up and pulls out into traffic.

“What’s happened?” Sherlock asks again, a slight tremor in his voice.

Anthea hands a bottle of water and a paper cup back to Jess. “His doctor said these would be all right.”

“Jess, please.” He begs quietly. She gives him a sympathetic nod.

“Okay Sherlock. Take these for me first, will you?”

Sherlock takes the cup and looks inside. “Ativan?” His hand starts to shake. Doctors don't usually want to prescribe a recovered cocaine addict drugs like this. It has to be bad.

Jess cups his shaking hand and speaks to him quietly. “John went into cardiac arrest, Sherlock. They are doing everything they can and we’ll have you there as soon as possible. I really think you should take that.”

Sherlock’s head drops to his chest and he composes himself. He tries to take deep breaths around the familiar crushing weight in his sternum. He cracks the water bottle and downs the offered pills. His gray eyes look empty as he numbly hands the water back to Jess, and curls himself up into the seat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is the last one, and will be coming up this weekend.


	6. Absolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock feels nauseous at the word _resuscitate_ . John was _dead_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More heaps and praises on gowerstreet for beta.

Sherlock has been in the waiting room for hours. He is thankful for the sedative. There is nothing to do but wait, and it keeps the panic attack at bay. He can feel it, fluttering on the edge of his mind, trying to get through the medication.

He also suspects he has been tranquilized so as not to terrorize the hospital staff.

Lestrade stops to see him. He offers to drop by Baker Street to soothe Mrs Hudson and pack an overnight bag. He also tries to contact John's sister, who is not to be found at the time. Sherlock is surprised he feels grateful for the visit, even if the DI feels the need to pepper him with platitudes like “everything will be alright.”

The Ativan is wearing off. Sherlock is starting to feel restless when a doctor finally comes out.

She smiles encouragingly. “Dr. Watson is doing much better, Mr. Holmes. He is in Recovery. He is in and out of consciousness and still on a respirator. You can come see him for a few minutes, if you'd like,” she says.

“Damage?” Sherlock asks, standing to follow.

“He is very lucky Mr. Holmes. Because he arrested in A&E, they were able to resuscitate and get him stabilized immediately. The surgery went remarkably well. The initial EKG looks good, but we will know more tomorrow.”

Sherlock feels nauseous at the word _resuscitate_ . John was _dead_. 

“Here you go.” She says, leading him to his bed. “Just for a few minutes, now. You can come back when we move him to Critical Care.”

John is barely recognizable wrapped in the tubes and apparatus supporting him. Sherlock hooks a stool over with his foot and sits on it heavily. John is as white as the sheets on the bed. His chest is wrapped in piles of thick gauze. He doesn't seem to be awake.

The familiar pressure Sherlock carries in his own heart presses to the point of rupture. It becomes hard to breathe, hard to think. He starts to sweat and his pulse quickens. He is quite sure if something doesn't give, he will end up on a bed next to his friend.

“John?” He lays his hand carefully on his, avoiding the cords and IV tubes.

John doesn't stir.

“It's over. We got them all now.” He tells him. Something tears inside as he continues to talk. He is vaguely aware that he is unwinding.

“I failed, John. All that time I was gone, everything I did. For nothing. I wasn't sure when I came back from falsifying my death if you would forgive me. I'm still not sure if you ever have forgiven me. It was a chance I took and it wouldn't of mattered, if you had been safe.” His voice cracks, but he can't stop the flow of words once they have started. “Now this. They hurt you anyway, because of me. In spite of everything.” A sob escapes and he lays his cheek on the bed beside their hands. John smells unfamiliar and sterile, antiseptic.“Why did you do it, get in the way? It was supposed to be me in danger. It was always supposed to be me.” Undone, hot tears finally fall. “I cannot abide without you. Please. John.”

Sherlock feels John's hand twitch and lightly curl around his.

*

“He is breathing on his own. He is still in and out of consciousness, which they assure is to be expected.” Mycroft says after hanging up the phone.

Jess looks up at him. His face is completely composed, if he had just announced he preferred wheat toast. “That's great news, My.” She knows that really he has been chewing his cuticles raw the last 48 hours, waiting for news.

“Indeed.” He sits on the edge of the chaise, watching her pack.

“Well, then, it's settled. Come to Geneva with me.” She tells him while trying to figure out how to stuff yet another book in her suitcase.

Mycroft shifts to lean his chin on his hand. “Dr. Watson is not quite out of danger yet. Sherlock...”

“Needs some space.” She says, surrendering her fight with the luggage and tossing _Cryptography: Theory and Practice_ on Mycroft's bed.

“I worry about him.”

“You smother him, Mycroft.” She kneels down in front of him. “John is going to be alright. Sherlock has his housekeeper and his DI friend to look in on him.”

He looks at her dubiously. “I just fear he is a delicate place right now.”

“Which he needs to figure out himself, and you know you can't help him.” She puts her bandaged hand on his knee. “It's less than two hours away.”

Mycroft starts to protest and she cuts him off.

“You can't tell me it's about work. Anthea told me you can afford to scheme on your cell this weekend.”

Mycroft laughs, starting to surrender. He grasps his heart dramatically, “My very own PA plots against me Et tu, Anthea!” Jess adores it when he laughs. The Iceman, indeed.

Jess purrs and crawls into his lap. “Besides I'll make it worth your while.”

Mycroft lifts an eyebrow and his voice pitches a bit lower. “I'm listening.”

“I'll let you take me to the Grand Théâtre de Genève.” She says with a wink.

“Opera? You are consenting to go to the opera?” he exclaims in surprise.

“One of the many ways I suffer for love.”

Mycroft almost dumps her to the floor as he scrambles for the phone to make his arrangements.

*

Amused, John watches Sherlock chew his way through a pencil. He has been sitting in a chair by his bedside for hours scribbling on several sheets of paper and flipping through a copy of _Cryptography: Theory and Practice._ Jess had it sent over, and is texting Sherlock discrete mathematical problems and cryptograms on occasion. Sherlock scoffs at the ease of the first ones she sends, but they have become progressively harder, and the most recent one is giving him trouble.

The puzzles are keeping Sherlock's hyperactive brain out of mischief while he sits at John's bedside. John also suspects Jess has kept Mycroft scarce, avoiding any familial drama for a while. John makes a mental note to send her flowers when he is out of hospital. Perhaps she has a dissertation on _The Care and Feeding of the Holmes Brothers_ he can borrow.

John has been slowly gaining strength since they moved him from critical care. Being a good doctor and a bad patient, when he isn't resting he has been looking through his own medical files and treatment plan. His ultrasound and EKG looks good and his surgeon has done a fine job. The wound is cleaner than his old shoulder injury. While he has months of physiotherapy to look forward to, it is looking like his scar will leave him with less lasting harm than his war wound. He is acutely aware of how lucky he is. The bullet had been lodged centimeters away from his heart and major arteries.

“Hey.”

Sherlock looks up from his book. “Ah. Awake again. Need anything?”

“I'm okay.” John replies, and Sherlock dives back into his book.

Sherlock has been perfectly composed after the incident in recovery. If you call “perfectly composed” haranguing nurses and calling doctors idiots if he feels John was not getting the utmost attention. He isn't eating much or sleeping, but that is also nothing new. At least Greg, Mrs. Hudson or Harry sometimes chase Sherlock off, making him take a break from his vigil to care for himself.

John is sure Sherlock thinks he does not remember what he had said to him after his surgery. Of course it is not a bad assumption; John had recently come out of anaesthesia and then drifted in and out of a morphine haze for two days. Now that he has had a chance to consider carefully, enough is enough. Sherlock is simply going to carry on as if nothing had happened unless John brings it up.

“Sherlock, are we going to talk about the things you said to me?”

Sherlock's eyes widen but stay on the book. After a moment he says, “I would prefer not.”

John sighs. “Come over here.” He shifts over very carefully, and pats the side of the bed. Sherlock snaps the book closed and perches next to John.

“I'd really like to talk about it.” John says.

Sherlock huffs, but doesn't leave. He is having trouble meeting John's eyes.

“Yes, I realize it's not your area.” John says, diving in. “I need you to know that I forgive you. Yes, you put me through hell when I thought you had...jumped. I was angry and it took me some time when you came back. I know why you did it, Sherlock. I wish you hadn't, damn it. I wish you had trusted me...” Sherlock sighs, but John doesn't pause, “...but I understand. I came to terms with this months ago. You can't undo the past.”

Sherlock considers for a full minute. “What about this time?” He asks, finally looking at John with stormy eyes, “How many times will you have to forgive me for endangering you?”

“Sherlock, the only one responsible for this is dead. You didn't shoot me. In fact, I remember being daft enough to get in the way of a bullet.” John tries to smile, but it doesn't ease Sherlock at all.

“What I do is dangerous, there will be a next time. Not Moriarty's people, but some other time I will hurt you, disappoint you, get you injured. John..I'm not safe.”

“Yeah, you think I don't know? Maybe you should let me worry about the choices I make and not hold yourself responsible for them, hey? I absolve you. Cut it out.”

Sherlock has dropped his eyes back down into his lap. He releases a breath he didn't realize he has been holding. The knot in his chest he has been carrying for years suddenly lessens a little..

John gives Sherlock a moment to process while he gathers his courage. In for a penny...

“I'd also like to figure out what is going to happen when we go back to Baker Street.”

Sherlock looks up at at him, perplexed. “What do you think is going to happen?”

“It doesn't take a consulting genius to know what 'I cannot abide without you' means, Sherlock. I'm not being very patient, I know, but I kind of died a few days ago, for a little bit.” John reaches for Sherlock's hand. “I don't want to waste any more time. If you want to go back to being flatmates and business partners, it's fine. It really is.”John swallows nervously, “If there is something else you'd like to try, something more, that would also be...good.”

Sherlock gasps. The lead beast flees its resting place in his heart. The weight completely dissipates. Something warm and soft takes its place. He grasps John's hand.

Sherlock beams at John wickedly. “'Good?' That's the best you can do under the circumstances?”

John pulls Sherlock toward him. “I'll work up to the mushy poetry later.”

“It is perfectly acceptable to forgo it.” Sherlock shutters in mock horror, finding a way to embrace John without disrupting his remaining medical devices.

“No Sherlock. I don't want to skip out on anything.” John says, carefully taking him in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This really is the first fictional story I have written! Comments are welcome, really!


End file.
